SERMON XLVI. SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST.
ON THE LOVE OF GOD.
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart." MATT. xxii. 37.
"BUT one thing is necessary." (Luke x. 42.) What is this one thing necessary? It is not necessary to acquire riches, nor to obtain dignities, nor to gain a great name. The only thing necessary is to love God. Whatever is not done for the love of God is lost. This is the greatest and the first commandment of the divine law. To the Pharisee who asked what is the greatest commandment of the law, Jesus Christ answered: ” Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart .... This is the greatest and first commandment." (Matt. xxii. 37, 38.) But this, which is the greatest of the commandments, is the most despised by men: there are few who fulfil it. The greater part of men love their relatives, their friends, and even brute animals, but do not love God. Of these St. John says that they have not life that they are dead. ” He that loveth not, abideth in death." (I John iii. 14.) St. Bernard writes, that the reward of a soul is estimated by the measure of her love for God. ” Quan-titas animæ æstimatur de mensura charitatis quam habet." (Serm. xxvii., in Cant.) Let us consider today, in the first point, how dear this command of loving God with our whole heart ought to be to us; and, in the second, what we ought to do in order to love God with our whole heart.
First Point. How dear this command of loving God with our whole heart ought to be to us.
1. What object more noble, more magnificent, more powerful, more rich, more beautiful, more bountiful, more merciful, more grateful, more amiable, or more loving, than himself, could God give us to love? Who more noble than God? Some boast of the nobility of their family for five hundred or a thousand years; but the nobility of God is eternal. He is the Lord of all.
